


Situational Ethics

by CobaltStargazer



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, Past Events, Tension, mentions of drug addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 15:33:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4711112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltStargazer/pseuds/CobaltStargazer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron and Elle discuss secrets, lies and clarity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Situational Ethics

It was like waiting for the clouds to open up and bring the rain. 

Aaron knew that Elle had spoken to JJ, come into the office to have words with her. Reid was taking the aftermath of the Doyle business and Prentiss' return badly, or at least not as well as had been expected. It had been a tactical decision, one that Aaron couldn't bring himself to fully regret. The dishonesty aside, at the time protecting Emily's life was the first order of the day. Now everyone was trying to pick up the pieces and move on.

He did wonder what Elle's involvement was. He'd known on a peripheral level that she and Spencer had remained close even though she'd moved out of state, and he was reluctant to question the younger profiler. Because questions might lead to answers he didn't want. He'd seen glimpses of their body language when she would stop in briefly to pick him up, and he wasn't sure he wanted to delve further.

It wasn't that Elle was precisely savoring the suspense. But it wasn't like with JJ, who she hadn't been close enough to that she'd have wanted to handle the matter with kid gloves. She and Hotch had bordered on being friends when she was with the BAU, and maybe she'd wanted to think better of him. Still, things were what they were. In those first shaky days after she'd resigned, she'd wondered how often Aaron Hotchner had gotten nosebleeds from the altitude of his ivory tower. Now, she wondered how she''d missed his feet of clay.

"I remember the last time I was in this office."

The brunette said it from the door, leaning against the jamb. Hotch was sitting at his desk, and he looked up when she spoke. He'd gotten older, she could see the lines etched into his face near his mouth and on his forehead. She supposed she looked different too. Not just the fact that she'd grown her hair out after she'd left, but something about the eyes. Once you'd stared into the abyss and found something staring back at you, it added years to your life.

"Would you like to sit down?"

"No. Thanks, I'm just here for a few minutes. Dinner plans."

Elle stepped further into the smaller space, left the door open. The silence held as she studied him, and after a minute he cleared his throat.

"I wish you'd sit," he said in a mildly annoyed voice. "I've never liked hovering."

She snorted, then lowered her weight into the other chair. That actually made her feel better, to have him be a little snarky, and she looked at the wall while pondering things. More silence. Neither of them seemed to want to start the conversation.

"I did what I had to." 

It was a reluctant statement on Aaron's part, and Elle looked at him out of the corner of her eye, still half-looking at the wall. On one level, she could understand it. But then there was Reid, and...well...

"Did you know what it was doing to him? JJ must have, but did you? I don't know what goes on here anymore, were you paying attention?"

"Yes, I was," Aaron said tightly. "And that you knew about the Dilaudid and didn't see fit to tell any of us is on you. You knew he'd been an addict, and I saw the flowers you sent when Emily had to disappear. You could have picked up a phone. One of us would have done something."

Elle let out another snort, a derisive noise. "Yeah, JJ tried that one too, more or less. Doesn't work any better now than it did when she was saying it. I _did_ make sure he got to his first meeting, listened to his testimonial. We went out and got pancakes afterwards. He could barely look at me the entire time, but I walked him through those first few steps."

Her anger was like a dull orange flame, ready to blaze bright yellow. Her feelings for Reid were complicated. He'd been the only one who'd made the effort to reach out, try to steady her, and that was why she'd kept her silence when he'd told her about the drugs. To repay the favor, even though sometimes she wondered why he was still hanging onto the friendship. Aaron was looking at her gravely. Her shoulders went up and down.

"I can't take it back," he told her. "Even if I could, I'm not sure I would. We needed to act quickly. _I_ needed to make decisions in a hurry, and there was no room to consult everyone else. Not even Reid."

Elle was facing him fully now, and he saw that Something in her eyes that he occasionally noticed when he looked at himself in the mirror. The right corner of her mouth quirked, as she tipped her head, studying him.

"Mmm. Situational ethics, Hotch? Seems I've heard that before."

Aaron's expression soured, and he pushed his fingers through his close-cropped hair. "Our situations are nothing alike," he said in a measured voice, and underneath the anger Elle felt something that was dangerously close to glee. Hotch was a difficult man to rattle, and when she'd still been with the unit she'd often been amazed at his calm detachment. But she knew that beneath that stoicism, other things lurked. Her right shoulder went up and down, a jerky shrug.

"You know, you meet all kinds at Group," she said thoughtfully. "I got into counseling after I left, Reid might have mentioned it. Ex-law enforcement officers, mostly, cops and Feds alike. I met a Fibbie named Dana after a meeting, heard her speak about a friend of hers who had been killed in the line of duty. A U.S. Marshall named Sam." Pause. "We only give first names to maintain anonymity. I don't think she ever realized the connection, and truthfully Dana's screws could probably still use some tightening. Some of us go to the edge, then stay there."

Time had taken a deep breath, slowing to a walk, then a crawl. Aaron looked down at his left hand, where his wedding band no longer occupied his ring finger. The clouds were parting, he could smell the coming downpour. Elle watched him study his ringless hand.

"Clarity, Hotch," the brunette said evenly. "One moment of perfect, _blinding_ certainty that if you don't do something, if you don't act, everything will be lost. Even if it changes you, even if it costs you a piece of yourself, you have to take steps you never thought you would." This was the closest she'd come, the closest she would _ever_ come, to telling Aaron Hotchner the truth.

Had it been the clarity she described? He could remember the anger, and sometimes he could hear and feel George Foyet's nose and cheekbones breaking under his blows during the beating, but clarity? Aaron's dark eyes sought out Elle's, and she was just looking at him. But her mouth was a narrow line, and her eyes seemed focused on something he couldn't see. Looking inwards, or looking back?

"For what it's worth," she said, shaking off the brief reverie, "I was...I was sorry that it came to that for you. I barely knew Haley, but for you, for Jack to lose her that way..." She shook her head. It was a hard admission for her to make when she was still angry and resentful over not only Reid's wounded feelings but the lack of help she'd gotten in the past. But she'd buried her father at the age of eight, and for the boy's sake she could offer her sympathy.

"He still misses her."

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Elle took a slow breath. "I think what you did sucks. I think it wouldn't have mattered if I _had_ told you about the drugs, that you'd have sent him to a fucking psych eval while Gideon shoved his head even farther under the sand. But Reid's a man, and he can make up his own mind. You have to let him do that, both you and JJ. Actions have consequences, right?"

He dropped his gaze to the desktop, feeling guilty and discomfited. Because maybe they were more alike than he wanted to admit, and she'd told him once that the team had failed her. His natural reserve wouldn't allow him to say that he regretted not seeing the signs that she was in trouble, that he'd tacitly left it to Reid to deal with the issue. And that some nights when he was up late, he thought about the part of his psyche he'd touched when he'd used his fists to end the Reaper's life. He wondered if Elle ever did the same.

"Elle?"

Spencer poked his head through the open door, and they both looked at him. He gauged their expressions, and his face closed up a little. He took a half-step into the office, hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

"Are you ready to eat?" he asked in a neutral voice, and she nodded. The chair made a noise as she got up, and Spencer gave Aaron a guarded smile. They were mostly back on speaking terms, but only as it related to work. The temperature was still frigid, not allowing a thaw to arrive.

Reid left before Elle did, and before she exited Aaron's office, he asked, "Does he know? About moments of clarity?"

She paused, half in the doorway and half out of it, and she was looking inward again, seeing William Lee collapse to the pavement. "He's never asked, actually," she said, re-focusing on Hotch's newly-lined face. And she supposed that if Spencer ever did, she would tell him the truth. Because by now, he'd earned the right to that from her.

As if he read her thought, Aaron asked, "And if he does?"

Elle's eyebrows went up, but she didn't answer. What went on between Spencer and herself was no one's business unless they wanted it to be. And right now, Hotch did not have that privilege. 

"I gotta go, he's waiting for me. Do yourself a favor, go home. It's probably been a long day. The days were _always_ long in this job."

She left, and he contemplated the empty doorway before glancing at his watch, then getting up from the desk. It was past eight, but if he left now, he could get home in time to see Jack before his son was in bed. Elle was right. It _had_ been a long day.


End file.
